Wednesday, April 16, 2008

I'm super behind in blogging (I still need to blog about Easter!), so I need to back up from surgery day just a little. Rylan finished an antibiotic on Monday evening a week ago for an ear infection that started the day of his birthday party. Monday evening, he began getting irritable again. I figured he wasn't over the ear infection. He continued to be irritable on Tuesday and then began running a fever of 102.1 on Wednesday. It didn't go below 100 for a couple of days. My pediatrician isn't in the office on Wednesdays, and Rylan was going to see his ENT for his pre-op appointment on Thursday anyway, so I waited it out. He was sleeping okay about every other night. In the meantime, I started to feel bumps on both sides of his bottom gums, so I started to think maybe he was teething. We went to our appointment on Thursday, and the Dr. said he definitely had a lot of fluid, but his ears were NOT infected. Since the surgery was scheduled for 8 am on Monday morning, we had to show up at the hospital anyway because there was no way to update the hospital on his situation over the weekend. He continued to run a fever until sometime on Friday. He was still cranky on Saturday evening and Sunday.

On Monday morning, we woke Rylan up at 6:15 to go to the hospital. He seemed confused, but he did not fuss. He did not go to sleep on the way to the hospital. When we got there, he was very playful and smiley. He did not even seem hungry! Of course, he doesn't usually eat breakfast until 9 am! The nurse put his bracelet on his wrist, and he had it off within seconds! She put it back on "tighter" and it took a little longer, but he got it off again! This time it went on his other ankle. He worked on the ankle bracelets as well but wasn't successful!

Before surgery, the surgeon came in and was very concerned about the fever. He did not acknowledge that it could be teething since most Dr.'s say that fever is not related to teething. For awhile, I thought he was going to cancel surgery. When he heard Rylan just "recovered" from an ear infection, he decided that must be the reason for the fever, so he went ahead with surgery.

Rylan went back for surgery at 8:07 am. Less than 15 minutes later, the ENT came out and told us that all went well with the tubes and that the surgeon had started on his palate. We were updated every hour for the next two hours. Then an hour later the surgeon appeared and let us know that everything went well, and Rylan was in recovery! The surgery lasted a little over 3 hours, which was at least an hour and a half less than the lip repair surgery! We still weren't able to see him for a little over an hour, but finally, they let us see him in recovery. He had received quite a bit of pain medicine and was sleeping, so we just let him sleep until he woke up on his own about an hour later. They did not have a room for us for another 8 hours, so we spent the entire afternoon & evening in recovery watching patients come and go. Rylan wouldn't take any fluid from a syringe or a cup. We kept trying but he would scream if we put anything near his mouth. We finally got a room and tried to get some sleep. He settled down and dozed off for awhile, but then he started crying. He received more meds, and we tried to give him something to drink, but he refused. This continued through the night. We took turns holding him in the rocker.

Finally, around 8 am, with a little distraction from "The Wiggles" we were able to get him to take some ice cream! However that was it for awhile. We were discharged around 4 pm. We spent the night at home trying to get him to drink and rest comfortably.

He went for a ride in the wagon after "breakfast" and saw the aquarium! He actually enjoyed the ride. These pictures were taken when we returned to the room. Apparently, he wasn't through riding!

These pictures were taken shortly before leaving! The quilt and stuffed lion were gifts from a special elderly lady who made the quilt specifically for him when we found out he would have a cleft. She said he would be lionhearted. He definitely has been!

Home update: Rylan started taking a little more fluid when we got home. He likes Jell-O, much to his Grammy's dismay! He slept off and on (in bed with us). Today we tried to put him back "on schedule." He took two decent naps in his crib and is now sleeping in his crib for the night (we hope). We'll see! I think his biggest issue is the restraints! He just can't get comfortable. On the plus side, though, he is learning to crawl on his hands and knees! It is bittersweet for me because I love his lopsided combat crawl! I'll have to see if I can "cheat" and take the restraints off, so I can try to get some video of the combat crawl.

More updates coming! Delaney and Landon have been up to some really cute stuff! Rylan's kind of gotten all the press with his birthday and surgery! Now, I'm going to try to get some sleep while Rylan's sleeping!

Thursday morning update: Rylan woke up a 2 am and spent the rest of the night in bed with us--not sleeping! I gave him some Tylenol--He DOES NOT like the pain medicine the Dr. prescribed (like mother, like son?). I offered him some Jell-O and juice around 4 am, but he only took a little. He fussed most of the morning. So, of course, he is sleepy now and sleeping great in his crib.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Rylan's 12 month appointment went well...just the normal stuff! Here are his stats:

Height: 28 1/2 inches (The Dr. thought this was probably inaccurate based on his nine month measurement, which I don't remember right now!)

Weight: 19.4 lbs (I was surprised! I thought he was over 20 lbs! I guess he seems so big compared to his siblings.)

Dr. Karen was not very concerned about him not crawling, pulling up, cruising, or walking. She just wants to follow up at his 15 month visit. The biggest news for us is that he can drink whole milk now! No more formula! We have been buying formula for 26 months...over half of that time for at least 2 babies! (There was a brief period where we didn't use as much formula since Rylan had mostly expressed breast milk for awhile.) What a difference that will make in our grocery bill!

These photos are from his one year sitting! Doesn't he look like such a big boy!